Back in 2006 I decided to cook all 1293 recipes in "The Gourmet Cookbook." It took a few years, but I made them all! Now I have moved on to the over 1100 recipes in "Gourmet Today." I anticipate several more years of kitchen fun!

Alex and I chose this recipe both because Alex has a grill (!) and because I am a bit behind on the "Sandwiches and Pizzas" section. These sandwiches were pretty good. The flavor combination was nice -- I liked the lemon aioli together with the feta quite a lot. The mint was a great addition, but it was slightly overpowering. If I were to make these again, I would cut back on the mint a bit. Grilling really did wonders for the eggplant. I'm not usually a huge eggplant fan, but it had a really nice flavor. My biggest complaint is a textural one. Grilling the eggplant made it very custardy, as the recipe predicted. This made the sandwich a bit gooey in a way that wasn't terribly appealing. It especially did not work well with the crusty baguette that the sandwich was served on. The huge contrast in textures made the sandwich seem incoherent. I think it would have been better served on some nice ciabatta...

I think my love of country music is starting to warp my view of romance. Men in country music are so forthcoming with how they feel. It's rarely like that in real life. I keep thinking that I want that -- that I would appreciate that sort of honesty and clarity. But maybe it would really just scare me off... I'm not sure. Of course it sounds romantic and perfect for the doorbell to ring and a guy to be standing on the doorstep with a pint of ice cream. But it's only romantic if it's the guy you want to see on your doorstep... I should stop listening to these songs. I can't remember the last time a guy just showed up uninvited on my doorstep. Oh, actually I do remember -- it was a long time ago though.

Emilee used to say that everything should be labeled. She meant buildings and trees and things. That way if you wanted to learn about them, the information would be right there. I wish everything was labeled. For instance, I wish that whenever you spent time with another person there was a little sign that would say "Date" or "Not a date." I just really can't tell these things. Since so many of my friends are men, I made a policy. Unless the guy uses the word date, pays for me, or attempts to kiss me, I just assume it's not a date. Sometimes I worry that my policy may be imperfect though... I think the pretend people in the country music songs don't have these problems. The country music men are pretty straightforward. ;)

1 comment:

Just to let you know, men who are forthcoming are scary as all hell. Honesty and clarity are highly overrated. You are either swept off your feet because you like them and actually want them to be all romatic OR you are just scared away because they seem to like you so much more than you like them.

I can say this because large romantic gestures are common in the place where I've recently spent a lot of time. :-)